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Despite the ire of many England fans, and the possibility that the English FA are of the same mind, I can’t see how anyone could conclude that only Rooney was directly responsible for getting himself sent off. My take is that C Ronaldo’s protestations didn’t do it, but Rooney’s shove, coming so soon after the stamp on Carvalho, was the decider — effectively the ref skipped two yellow cards and went straight to the red.

However: what the hell was Rooney doing up in front by himself? The Portguese are pretty fair defenders when they condescend to play football instead of diving and the service from midfield to Rooney has been questionable – actually, it fairly demonstrated why Rooney does well on a team with a winger who has pace and can cross at least a bit, like “cheating Portuguese swine” Cristiano Ronaldo… oh. But England didn’t have anyone like that… except perhaps Aaron Lennon… oh. And all the complaints about Ronaldo from the other England team players doesn’t really pass muster either… perhaps I shouldn’t mock the US team for being made up mostly of university graduates after all.

And therein lies the broader issue for England: Eriksson’s so-called tactics. There’s been plenty written about how uselessEriksson has been, so I won’t belabor the point except to say that I would like a job where I could make millions for taking a team of reasonably talented individuals and make them less than the sum of their parts.

Presumably given his fondness for sitting on a 1 – 0 lead, Eriksson will get a mid-season post in Serie A. Or, worse yet, he’ll take the job at Juventus and lead them in a blazing charge back from Serie B.